Bitspower Cold Cathode Review

PC-PitStop sent over a 12″ green cold cathode kit from Bitspower which is a company that mostly makes heatsinks but have started getting into the case modding realm because that’s where everyone wants to be. Case lighting is one of the biggest parts to a successful case mod in my opinion.

Without lighting no one can see your work in the dark and even if they can during the day lighting will only make your case look much better. There are many different ways you can light the inside of your case some of which I have reviewed before and this is the best option that is available right now in my opinion. I have seen a lot of cold cathode kits and some are really nice and some have a lot to be fixed.

A lot of the time the cheap cold cathode kits are really poor in quality and have a lot of problems which are not worth the few dollars less that you are going to pay. Below are the specifications for this cold cathode kit and colors of the different pictures that it comes in

Length: 300 mm

Voltage: 570 ± 40 V

Current: 3.5 mA

Power: 2.85 ± 0.30 W

Brightness: Over 18000 ± 3000 nt (cd/m2)

Lift Time: Over 15000 Hour

Six Colors: Blue, Green, Red, UV, Purple, & Yellow

When I opened up the FedEx box I was surprised to see that this cold cathode was not in a plain white box but was actually in a professional box with the bitspower stuff on it. I opened up the package to find that the packing inside was really good, there was foam around everything and there was bubble wrap on the cold cathode itself. Packaging is always a big part of the product I believe because poor quality packaging and poor quality products usually go together.

The cold cathode comes with an inverter which is very well insulated with heatshrink so that you don’t shock yourself or any parts in your computer. It is totally silent and can handle one or two cold cathodes at a time, and yes there are some inverters which make noise and will shock you I can tell you this from personal experiance so don’t look lightly at this fact, below are some specs for it.

Input Voltage: DC 12 V

Output Current: 5 mA (Per-Output)

Support Output: Single (Standard) / Dual (Option)

The cold cathode is a complete kit so it comes with the mounting hardware which is 3 zip ties, 3 zip tie mounts, and some tape. It also comes with a toggle switch so that you can turn the cathode on and off which is really nice because these things are bright and can be a little hard to sleep with while they are on. There is one thing that I did not like about the switch, the wires from the Molex to the switch are soldered on rather than having a connector of some kind so that it can be taken on and off so when you want to you can separate the two sides.

Not only does the cold cathode come shipped with bubble wrap all around it but it also has a plastic cover to it which will keep it protected from getting scratched after you take it out. The ends of the cold cathode have normal covers on them, I like when the ends have cubes on them only because it makes mounting it much easier most of the time. Because the cold cathode tube is well protected it did keep the tube nice and unscratched I really like when companies are willing to spend the extra effort to make a product even better in little ways like this.<

My testbed setup is scattered around and I am in the process of building a new one so I had no case with a system in it to put this in so I just grabbed a case which had a power supply in it and hooked this thing up. I plugged the Molex connector into one from the power supply and turned it on and it started to glow. This cold cathode is really bright and the inverter was completely silent which I could easily tell because there were no fans running on anything. The green color is really nice and I think that this would make a great addition to any case which doesn’t have any lighting or could use some more.

Conclusion

This is the second 12″ cold cathode kit I have reviewed although the last one was blue. I really like this kit a lot because of how nice it is and how bright it is. You get a complete kit with everything you will need to mount this kit, install it, and get it running.

This cold cathode is really bright and it comes in a lot of colors so you can match your light to your case mod, and the best thing is this kit is only $19 which is really good considering the quality of it and everything that comes along with it. Overall I am going to give this cold cathode kit an 8 out of ten because it’s really nice however the switch thing is something I would have liked to have seen different. I would like to thank Paul from PC-PitStop for sending over this kit to review, head over and pick one up you wont be disappointed.

Pros

Only $19.00

Great packaging

Comes in 6 different colors

Very bright

Comes with all mounting hardware

Easy to install

Cons

Switch and Molex are soldered together

Brandon Turnbull is a technology enthusiast living in southern California. He has written numerous articles and tutorials about PC overclocking and modification.